Covid Freak Show

Coastal Art Center, Orange Beach, AL

An Artist Faces the Plague

In the earlier post titled Entropy* I sketched out the initial wave that washed over the landscape which many artists live on. Devastating Uncertainty could be the title for what would be the historic crash of and entire cultural system. Not just in the United States but all over the globe where various economic dislocations occurred due to the draconian policies that were spawned by the Covid Plague‡.

When the news that Covid was spreading havoc across the world🌎 we were on our way to the Coastal Art Center in Orange Beach, Alabama for the annual art festival the second week of March 2020. The show was a small but well attended event that we had been working for a decade or more.

Driving north from Florida we were already hearing tales of panic from other artist whose events had been canceled. However, what would be coming was still only a paranoid mystery.

The location the festival was on the grounds of the Art Center🎨that is directly on Wolf Bay and just off the Gulf of Mexico which was less than two miles to the south. We were on a barrier island that stretches about 30 miles from Mobil Bay in the west to Perdido Bay just a mile or so to the east which forms the border between Alabama and Florida.

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Mystery of the Palm II

"Tree of the Soul"

Jacob Boehme's (1575-1624) concept of Creation as illustrated by Dionysius Freher (1649-1728)

The seven layers within the circle of illumination are the seven spirits that organize the awesome power of God.  This is the continuous force of Creation coming from God. Our world, seen at the base of the Majestic Palm, can only look in prayerful wonder at the incredible forces that surround us.

The symbolism of the palm tree recurs here as it did in John 12:12-19 which is the story of Lord Christ entering Jerusalem.  Freher roots the palm in the deep wisdom of antiquity and the cosmic truth of Creation.

Click here for the first part:  The Mystery of the Palm I    

Much more can be learned about Jacob Boehme at the website of the International Jacob Boehme Society.  The physical facility is located in Goerlitz, Germany (ancient Silesia) where Boehme spent much of his life.  There is an extensive English language site that is frequently updated.  

                                         Jacob Boehme Society 

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"One of the Trees in the Garden"

This watercolor was used in an exhibit in 1989 to illustrate the nature of the work done within the Institute for Perennial Studies. Entitled "One of the Trees in the Garden" an allusion to Genesis and the various trees in Eden. There were names written on the branches of different authors, prophets, and religious figures we were studying; the trunk was scripted with 'The Perennial Wisdom'.

What is evident today is the alchemical nature of the graphic although that may not have been consciously intentional at the time. It is highly mystical but not in the Eastern sense of a struggle towards "oneness". The feeling is instead a pluralistic mood that displaced truth into an organic collage of understanding that is a product of the human mind instead of a divine revelation.

Noting that all the ends terminated in buds rather than flowers it is up to the viewer to determine whether there is some conclusion to each terminus or not. Nothing has been decided in this milieu.

However, in toto it is far from nihilistic or even uncertain. The force of the proposition draws one into inquiry instead of conclusion. Yet there is a definite point of view which is non-material. The whole picture floats in a cosmic location with sun and moon setting the stage in a universe filled with knowledge. The roots caressing both direct and indirect light feeding off of both but not relying on any earthly attachment.

This is a world beyond materialism which is the home of wisdom. Although data can be found by measuring; ultimately data is ephemeral. Here wisdom is obtainable but not by direct sensory means. It is a world of symbol and metaphor which exists in an eternal place beyond the reach of data and material facts.